


Heartlines

by SouthernMoonshine



Category: Cal Leandros - Rob Thurman
Genre: Blood Brothers, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Gen, It Started AU But It Is Now Canon, Song fic, Suicide, extispicy, norse raiders slash vikings slash I'm making this up as I go, reading omens by entrails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22298482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernMoonshine/pseuds/SouthernMoonshine
Summary: A Leandros Past-Lives fic! Inspired by the lines in Blackout: What if Niko had been a Viking warlord?
Kudos: 6





	1. Heartlines

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or this song and am not making profit off them. All belong to their respective creators. 
> 
> [Heartlines, by Florence + the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0afzSR5paA8)

_Oh the river, oh the river, it’s running free_  
_And oh the joy, oh the joy it brings to me_  
_But I know it’ll have to drown me  
_ _Before I can breathe easy_

* * *

The beat of drums, the chant and the scent of red blood. Hot wet streaks on face and bare chest, mixing and melding with the thick paint, and Niko opened his eyes on the triumphant shout. The taste of blood between his lips as he smiled and joined in the cry, raising gauntleted arms above his head. A warrior blooded, a man unconquered, and he was pushed into the circle. Hands smeared thick wet streaks of blood along his head until his blonde braids were red and brown and drying black, and with the roll of the drums the dancing began, wild and unrestrained. Niko threw back his head and laughed, tasting ice and blood, and took his place in the circle, booted feet stamping the packed thawing earth.

Triumph and victory, raised high on the shouts of warriors drunk on the battle’s end.

* * *

_And I’ve seen it in the flights of birds_ _I’ve seen it in you_  
_The entrails of the animals the blood runs through_  
_But in order to get to the heart I think_  
_Sometimes you have to cut through_

* * *

Taste of blood, hot and warm. Caliban tipped his head back and watched the crows soar over. He twisted a hand, pulled out a loop of intestine, and grinned. He did not get to his feet until the shadow of the warrior fell across the deer carcass. He tipped his head back and grinned before he stood. The warrior tall and blonde and triumphant, and Cal _knew_ him and got to his bare feet, blood-mud squishing between his toes.

“You’ve come to fight me by tradition, but it won’t happen,” he said, with a sharp smile.

And instead of screaming monster, the blonde man raised an eyebrow. The double-bladed axe did not lower. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Cal smiled. “We’ll make a deal, you and me, and I will make you great.”

Niko lowered the blade of the axe. “And I will set you free.”

Cal snatched up his spear, and slit his palm on the barbs. He watched Niko do the same on his axe. As one they stepped forward, clasping hands and mixing the blood. Cal could feel the world _right_ itself and he smiled. Slipping his hand free, the monster laid his bloody palm over the warrior’s heart. The warrior reached across and did the same, bloody palm calloused and warm on bare flesh.

“And you and I, we will make the world tremble.”

* * *

_But you can_  
_Keep it up, we can, you can_  
_I know you can_  
_Just keep following the heartlines on your hand_  
_Keep it up, I know you can_  
_Just keep following the heartlines on your hand_ _‘  
Cause I am_

* * *

The battle raged, and Niko led the charge. Straight into the heart of the enemy’s defense, and how the knights trembled under the force of it! No-one could withstand the warriors of the north, and the proud knights fell beneath the strokes of the battle-axes.

Sudden screams, and Niko’s head whipped around, hearing a battle-cry both new and familiar.

And the monster Caliban took to the field, and men fled left and right.

Niko swept his axe up, joined his voice to Cal’s, and together they made the battle into a slaughter.

* * *

_Odyssey on odyssey, and land over land_  
_Creeping and crawling like the sea over sand_  
_Still I follow heartlines on your hand_

* * *

Strange white beaches, shells and the taste of olives. Niko walked along the waterline, leaving bare footprints in the sand.

Cal walked in the water, leaving no trail.

“The men talk. They don’t like that I am here,” Cal intoned, over the heartbeat of the ocean.

“They are my men. They will fight.” Whether or not they liked Niko’s tactics. He was proven and he was true; they would follow him to the ends of the earth and beyond into the afterlife. Not even a blood-bargain with a monster could end their loyalty. Niko stopped and let the warm Mediterranean water wash over his toes. So mild, so calm, so different from the violent icy seas of home.

Cal grinned, dark hair and pale skin untouched by the warm sun, though Niko and the rest of his warriors had hair bleached nearly to white and skin tanned like polished wood. “And tomorrow we fight these cruel barbarians. They will fling demons at you.”

“We will win. You and I will win,” Niko told him, with absolute confidence.

* * *

_This fantasy, this fallacy, this tumbling stone_  
_Echoes of a city that’s long overgrown_  
_Your heart is the only place that I call home_  
_Can I be returned? You can_

* * *

Cal turned in a slow circle. Birds of bright colours, green vines of abundance, the ancient stone slowly succumbing to the wild again. Bare feet sure, he leapt atop the rubble and skittered down the tumbledown wall, spear raised for balance. Cat-like, in silence, he padded up behind the man walking through the ruins, looking around in wonder. For a warrior, Niko took to culture and art with surprising aptitude. He told stories and wrote the lays his skalds took home to their people, proclaiming their conquests.

Niko stopped and stood silently. Cal stood behind him, shadows mixing into one on the ancient paving.

“We’ve come so far. The men worry about their wives.” Niko tipped his head back, and the intricate gold braids swayed against his tunic.

“And you?” Cal asked, knowing Niko had only a betrothed at home, and had turned down any number of exotic doe-eyed women as his right of conquest.

“Home...” Niko chuckled. “As strange as it sounds...I carry home with me.”

“In your heart,” Cal whispered.

“In my heart.” Niko turned, and shadows meshed again, anew, as monster and warrior clasped hands and embraced as brothers.

* * *

_What thing to do, oh_  
_What a thing to choose_  
_But know that in some way,  
I’m there with you_  
_Up against the wall on Wednesday afternoon_

* * *

Snow and ice and sunshine. Niko leaned against the stone and earthern dyke and watched the flowers of spring break through the frost. They bent in the harsh breeze, hardy and beautiful, and free. Wild and free. He smiled to himself and twisted the thin chieftain's braid at his temple. So new, so strange still. And away in the lodge, his wife waited, heavy with child. He and his warriors rested well, and plowing and sowing would begin soon.

But Niko’s smile widened when pale arms twisted around his shoulders, through the solid wall.

“I told you I would make you great.”

“And that I would set you free.” Niko leaned back, trusting.

“When you take up the axe again, my brother, I will take you to the battles. No need for ships,” Cal promised, breath making the chieftain’s braid flutter.

“I will be honored, my brother,” Niko replied.

* * *

_Just keep following the heartlines on your hand_  
_Just keep following the heartlines on your hand_  
_Keep it up, I know you can_  
_Just keep following the heartlines on your hand_  
_‘Cause I am_


	2. Norse Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niko seeks the future from his seer....and Niko had some very strange dreams.

_Valkomeren niin aavan  
_ _Joka aavekuun siivin  
_ _Saapuu mut kotiin noutamaan_

_White vast open sea  
_ _On the wings of a phantom moon  
_ _Comes to take me home_

[\-- “Taikatalvi” by Nightwish (Enchanted Winter)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1dATMenIc)

* * *

The soft blanketing silence of snowfall.

Niko’s breath frosted in the icy air, as a snowflake landed on his cheek and burned chill.

The snow crunched under his boots, and aside from his heartbeat and breath, Niko could have been the only one alive on the earth. The night was still, the moon scudding like a steady-sailing ship behind the heavy clouds. The wind tasted fresh and chill - more snow to come, and perhaps more ice on the sea. They would not sail for a few days yet, perhaps more if the cold and storms deepened. But the winter raids were not yet complete, and Niko’s men chafed under the restraint of the weather.

Niko knew well the impatience. And perhaps had he been younger, he would have set sail with the morning tides. But he was wise to the ways of the winter, and without certainty, he would not risk his men’s lives. The sea was a capricious mistress, and moreso in the heart of winter itself.

And so he would seek certainty.

Up the narrow mountain path Niko walked, booted feet sure despite the ice and snow. The wind nipped at his bared cheeks and tugged at his heavy cloak, but Niko paid it little mind. He made the last turn, and moved confidently to the yawning darkness of the mountain cave’s mouth. The wind whined and howled between the stones and around the jagged icicles, but Niko smiled at the lonely sound and ducked his head to enter. Now his footsteps echoed in soft whispers, and the snow fell from the folds of his cloak as he walked blind, knowing the route by heart. Still his breath misted in the cold. He took a side passage, followed the slope with sure feet, and navigated the series of hairpin turns into narrow corridors. The air became warmer, and Niko reached up with gloved hands.

He pushed back the hood of his cloak as he stepped into the cavern, lit by the rich golden gleam of firelight. His braided hair glistened in the light, burnished gold bright as the broach on his cloak, the chain at his throat. He smiled, sea-weathered face creasing, as a figure rose from the sheepskins by the fire, a cup of mulled wine in hand.

Niko bent his head, and Caliban kissed him on the cheek, lips warm against chilled flesh, even as he pressed the horn cup into Niko’s hand.

They clasped arms, a warrior’s greeting, even as Niko pressed a kiss to Caliban’s cheek. They needed no words, and Caliban smiled warmly as he stepped back, reaching up to unfasten the pin of Niko’s cloak. Niko let him, shrugged the fur-lined cloak free, and moved towards the fire, pulling his heavy fur-lined gloves off as he went. He sank down onto the sheepskins, sipping the hot mulled wine.

Bare feet padded silently across stone, and Caliban came to sit beside him, barechested even in the chill of winter. He bent to stoke the fire, and the long curtain of his dark hair swept over a bare shoulder; the small stones worked into it glittered in the firelight, and the feathers twisted and fluttered. He sat back, and there was silence between them as Niko warmed his calloused hands on the cup. It had a hunt scene carved around the rim, and Niko’s thumb rubbed over the leaping stag.

“The ice comes fast, my brother.”

Caliban’s voice echoed above the crackle of the flames, the husky sing-song tones of a seer in his trance. The future rang true in a monster’s beautiful velvety voice, rich and deep.

“Stay close to home. The winter will defeat you and lay waste to your warriors if you sail now. Wait until the weather breaks.”

Niko nodded slowly, and the thin chieftain’s braid at his temple swayed with the motion. Caliban’s visions only echoed his own thoughts, and he was pleased and heartened to know he was been on the right track. He sipped the wine, and savoured the rich taste. Caliban sighed, returning to the present, and moved to lie on the sheepskins before the fire. He laid his head on Niko’s knee. Niko laid a hand on the thick fall of raven-black hair. Many of Niko’s men saw Caliban as Niko’s pet monster, the half-tamed seer, but Niko knew better than to reduce Caliban to such a thing. No, they were equals, brothers bonded by oath and battle, and the love between them was no small thing. Caliban’s head on his knee was only a return of the many nights Niko had slept with his head in Caliban’s lap, safe from all threat in the middle of a warcamp.

Niko wove his fingers through the sleek hair, and sipped his wine. The fire murmured and whispered in the silence.

“My son’s nameday is in three day’s time, my brother,” Niko said at last, when the wine was gone, leaving a pleasant heat in his belly. “It would honor me greatly if you would come.”

Caliban hummed, a sleepy contented sound. “I will come, my brother. For you, I will cease to be the lonely mountain hermit for a day.”

Niko chuckled, because Caliban visited him often in the village, and out in the fields as he and the men trained for battle. The lonely mountain hermit? Yes and no. Caliban turned his head, iron grey eyes bright with amusement, affection. “Such words gladden my heart.”

“And bring terror to your wife’s. She’s still not certain I shan’t demand your firstborn’s flesh to seal our demonic bargain.” Caliban smiled, though, not offended or upset. He had Niko’s trust and loyalty. What other did he need?

“She listens overmuch to the tales of you in battle.” The skalds did their poetic best to capture the savagery, the terror that was Caliban in the full swing of battle, where men became monsters and monsters became gods. Niko himself, though he had seen it many times, and had never once feared Caliban, could understand the awe and dismay very well. When some creature had the power to rip a man apart from the inside out....and Caliban’s eager lust for blood and dead held its own particular horrors.

Niko stroked black locks, felt the weight of Caliban’s head on his knee, and watched sparks rise from the fire. The ancient and wild powers of the world, tamed into human hands. Into his hands, and he smiled a little. What a burden, what an honor.

Caliban sighed, deeply, and his calloused pale hand rested on Niko’s foot.

Warmth, peace, contentment.

Niko’s eyes slid closed, giving in to the moment.

* * *

Niko opened his eyes, losing the the dreaming sense of peace in the waking. He drew in a deep breath, confused. That...the taste of cold and of hot mulled wine, the scent of woodsmoke and tanned skins, it lingered in his senses. The feel of thick dark hair beneath his fingers. He curled his hands into fists, and sat up. So strange, so alien a dream...and yet so real.

As if he could close his eyes and step out into the snow, feel the bite of frost and the weight of the tides in the salt-sea-wind.

Niko shook his head, and reached blindly under his pillow. Unerringly he pulled out the short sword nestled there, and laid it across his lap as he reached up to set to rights his sleep-frizzed braid.

He had breakfast to make, training to do, Cal to take care of.

He could meditate on the dream, the strangely _real_ feel to it (like a memory and not just a dream, right down to the weight and weft of the tunic and breeches) later, when he had the time.


	3. Omens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whose entrails are we using to foretell this battle anyway?

Niko moved through the camp, stopping to talk, lay a hand on a shoulder, encouraging his men. They would fight today, and the tension in the camp was a beautiful thing. One of his captains looked up from fletching one last arrow.

“Chieftain. You should look to your Caliban. He left not a moment hence.”

“Indeed. I will, Egill.” Niko clapped the man on the shoulder, and moved past the last hide tent.

A dark flash of hair at the edge of the hill. Niko walked across the deep green grass, down the hill, and slowly the rest of Caliban was revealed. Pale skin marked with blood-paint and dark hair whipping in the wind, chest bare. He had a streaked lamb, bleating and kicking as he gripped its fleece with one hand, and raised his curved knife with the other.

But as Niko approached the lamb kicked out, small hooves thudding into Cal’s knee, and as Cal winced the lamb escaped. Niko watched it run across the grass as he walked up to his brother-in-arms.

The monster watched the lamb go, knife at his side. “That, my brother, is not a good omen for you today.”

“No?” Niko looked at the pale face, the dark hair twisted with bits of feathers and stone. 

“No. Your battle will go wrong today.” Cal’s eyes were half-closed, his voice that husky sing-song he used when seeing. “You are betrayed, my warlord, by a close friend.”

“You speak of Guthrum,” Niko said, knowing Cal’s dislike for the man, and matching the lamb’s streaked coat to Guthrum’s brindled beard, white and grey from a scar on his cheek. “I know you bear him no love, my brother, but do you truly think he would betray me?”

“It is foretold. The eagle fled before the crows this morn.” Cal smiled up at Niko, sea-grey eyes hooded under dark lash. “You should let me foretell the battle with Guthrum’s entrails. The outcome will be more favorable.”

Niko hesitated before shaking his head. His hair, clubbed for battle, tapped his shoulder-plate. “He has served me for many years.”

“He thinks you corrupted by me.” Cal’s smile had not faded a whit. “He will betray you and take your place--or so he thinks. My brother, when have I been wrong?”

Niko raised an eyebrow.

“...that was only once,” Cal declared, after a moment of silence, frowning. “Even the greatest of seers can be led astray by the vagaries of the gods.”

Niko smiled a little at Cal’s indignation, but he was troubled. “Come. We will ask Guthrum.”

“And if he shows false?” Cal asked, as Niko turned. Niko didn’t have to look to see the dark smile, the eagerness for bloodshed.

“Then you may read the fortunes of battle in his entrails,” Niko answered. He had not become the chieftain of the greatest empire the north had ever known by being gentle.

Cal’s spear rang as he caught it up, and bare feet skipped silently in the grass as he caught up to Niko’s longer stride. They walked side-by-side into the camp again, as one.


	4. Prophet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Aupheling and a peri have a conversation....

Caliban the monster lifted his head, scenting the arid desert wind. Now that...that was interesting. He glanced down at Niko, sleeping in the shade of tent and scrubby tree, sweat on his sea-weathered face, sunbleached golden hair twisting free of its braid. Sleeping, safe, in the center of the camp, with Caliban keeping watch despite the many warriors that would eagerly die to protect their chieftain. 

Caliban rose to his feet, sand and rock beneath his bare feet. Dark hair drifted across his bare shoulders as he silently crossed the tent, and peered out at the blinding desert sunshine.

In the heat of the day, all but the monsters slept.

With the subtle wrenching scream of reality torn in two, Caliban vanished from the tent.

He stepped out across time and space into the blistering harsh desert heat, and set his spear into the sand. “Well. Are you the answer to their prayers, archangel of the heavens?”

The peri straightened abruptly, gold-barred wings flaring wide. He was paler gold to Niko’s dark, but there was a distinct similarity in their faces, the noble set of bones and the regal carriage of the head. But it was superficial resemblance. The peri scowled. “Why do you walk the sands of the Holy Land, demon? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an Auphe. What wickedness are you demons up to?”

Caliban answered laughing, amusement flaring. This could be such fun. “You haven’t seen them because I am the last. And I have come not as a demon, but a prophet.”

The peri’s grey eyes narrowed. Caliban knew it was because he could sense lies, and Caliban _was not lying_. “The last?”

“Yes. I killed them all. Hunted them down and sent them back to Hell.” There had been such _fun_ in the hunt, in taking them down in packs and alone, the violent intensity required. He almost missed it - these silly human battles, though providing a greater scale of carnage, gave him no challenge.

The peri considered this. “And you say you come as a prophet. Dare you blaspheme against the Holy God?” Yet he knew Caliban had not lied. They both knew it. Caliban smiled again, because this was now his life - a harbringer of death but also of victory. 

“No. I am not a great prophet, to preach your Holy Writ. I am the prophet of a king, come to conquer. His kingdom is great, and the hand of your Holy God is with him. The people in Jerusalem are praying for deliverance - are you the answer to their prayers?”

“What?! After all they did to the Holy Child.... No. I am _not_ here to save a hardheaded people from their own sins. That one already came and you see how they treated Him.” The peri tucked his wings primly, but the suggestion of fire gleamed in the air around him. “And if the hand of the Holy God is on you, far be it from he to oppose what is His will.”

“The will of God is inscrutable, which is why I came to ask.” Caliban smiled, and leaned on his barbed spear. The wind caught several of the feathers in his hair, set them to twisting and pulling. “I leave you to your travels, then, mighty archangel of the heavens.”

The peri snorted, sounding remarkably Niko-like. Caliban chuckled, turned his back boldly, and stepped again through time, space, and the very fabric of the world.

Still Niko slept, though he turned his face towards Caliban as the monster crossed the tent. Caliban knelt beside his blood-brother, and watched him breathe. After a moment, he reached out and brushed back a damp strand of golden hair. Niko never stirred, recognizing Caliban even in sleep, trust complete. Such a dear and precious thing, this trust, this freedom between them. Caliban settled back down, leaning against the chest of Niko’s weapons, and cradled his spear against his shoulder, the worn wood hard against his bare shoulder. He would guard Niko, and well, and as he closed his grey eyes visions of the future danced before him. Victory balanced with death, the world’s ponderous shift in the great danse of the universe. Sight beyond this brief mortal life....

Caliban had lived for many, many more years than Niko. He had been old already when Niko had drawn his first breath.

But for these short years, Caliban had lived and breathed the charged passion of humanity, caught up - as were they all - in Niko’s grace and gift and God-touched power. And when the span of those brief fragile years ended...Caliban would end as well. 

He had been granted the choice, but at the same time Caliban thought that it had been made for him, in this man he loved.

They would live and die together.

But Caliban had made certain that the legacy of Niko’s greatness would live on, immortalizing him for all time.

Caliban sat and dreamed of the future to come, victory balanced by grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Danse, here, is misspelled intentionally as a reference to ["The Danse," by Caedmon's Call](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACYRxUB5Nbk)
> 
> I do not mean to be anti-Jew by Ishiah's statements, I am absolutely not. Canonically Ishiah is from a much more Catholic flavored angel mythology than a Jewish one, sadly.


	5. Fortunes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A son, a blessing, and the future foretold.

Niko stood in the center of the beaten circle in the fallow field. “Hands, Erik.”

His son lowered his hands, and the horse’s head went down correspondingly. “Good, good. Soft hands.” Niko nodded, turning to watch as the horse cantered around him. He was pleased with these outcrosses with the larger foreign horses of the desert; they were more tractable than the usual shaggy horses of home. True, the first crosses had produced three thin-skinned foals that had suffered miserably, but the rest had proved hardier. Hardier and gentler, less stubborn. Less prone to pitching a green rider off when he did wrong.

Reality warped in a subtle scream, and Caliban stepped through the tear of time and space.

The horse squealed and reared. Erik, in a show of control many riders older than him would have envied, brought the horse down and to a standstill before he leapt off, running to Caliban with a glad cry. He jumped and was caught without the slightest misstep. Caliban snarled and wrassled the boy in his arms, pretending to bite and claw but the smile kept twisting though.

Niko caught the frightened horse and pulled it to a trembling halt, stroking the grey’s nose. Few animals liked being around Cal; they could smell what he was, or sense it in their wise animal ways. Niko waited until the two had stopped playing. “Erik, take Gris to the pastures. Then you may visit.”

“Yes, father,” Erik chirped, and hugged Caliban once more before he was put down. He took the grey’s reins and led the horse away, all of six years and perfectly confident in his ability to handle the beast.

“He is a good son,” Caliban said, softly. “But he will never be as great a leader.”

“I know,” Niko replied, watching the boy go. “But he is a good son.” He turned to Cal, and they clasped wrists as warriors before embracing as brothers. “Why have you left your mountaintop, my brother?”

“To tell you the harvest is nearing its end, and the winter will be mild. War comes again. Not far but near--the islands of the south. The Brits again.”

Niko shook his head. “They are a persistent people.”

“They are a foolish people. They believe they will have divine help.” Cal smiled a little. “They do not realize all favor rests upon you, my brother.”

If it had been anyone but Cal, Niko would have hushed them for blasphemy. As it was... “I will gather my men tomorrow. It is a feast-day this day--please, my brother, eat at my hearth tonight.”

“My brother, you are gracious. I will join you.” Cal nodded, and moved to go pick up his spear again. Niko started walking across the field, knowing Cal would catch up momentarily; and together they descended towards the village.

Erik came pelting up behind them, and he jumped for Niko this time. Niko turned and snatched his son from the air. Erik laughed and hung his arms around his father’s neck, and began telling his ‘Uncle Caliban’ all about his horse and how he could shoot a bow now, and soon he would be all grown up and fight in the wars alongside Niko. Niko smiled over his son’s head, and Cal smiled back.


	6. Pyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cal has a dream. A dream about war and heartbreak and death.

Cal dreamed.

He dreamed of Niko, standing tall and fair.

And of blood and death and battle.

Niko's helmet was lost, his blonde hair braided for war flying free. He swung his axe, the double-bladed weapon biting deep into the armored foe. Niko's voice raised in a cry, and the arrows flew overhead like rain and hail and death. Niko plunged ahead, furs and armor bloodied and splattered with gore. He leapt a fallen man and the axe swung up.

Beside him a man died, torn apart from the inside out, and the monster Caliban threw his head back and laughed, wild and deadly. He wore no armor, bore only a barbed spear, and terror surrounded him. He was covered thickly in blood, gobbets of flesh, and his teeth were stained with it as he laughed and flung himself ahead, keeping pace with Niko, the two leading the charge straight into the enemy's ranks. None could withstand the two; Niko's deadly fury and the monster's wild bloodlust. It was terrifying, it was _glorious._

And was it a lucky shot, or one ill-fated?

Niko took the arrow in the throat and fell.

Caliban screamed.

And the world screamed with him.

Gates, a dozen, two dozen, a thousand - all opened simultaneously, and suddenly the only men standing on the battlefield were the ones Niko had been leading. The rest became nothing, smears of gore, flesh forgotten.

Caliban keened, the scream hoarse and broken, as he fell to his knees beside Niko's body. The sound was animal and Auphe and devastated.

Blood, the sight and scent and taste of it - blood, blood, brother-blood, blood-brother....

The mourners sang, and the funeral bier was lifted high on the weapons of his enemies. Niko had been great; the greatest chieftain the cold and bitter North had ever known. His son Erik carried the torch to light the pyre, and his face was streaked with tears and ash.

The song praising Niko's greatness died. And _how_ could that be him? Lying so still, the pallor of death bleaching him to marble and ivory, eyes closed and gold hair dry and brittle. A body, a dead _thing_ , how could it be Niko? It wasn't, _it wasn't_ , because Niko was _life_ and all it embodied, living laughing bright and burning like an eternal flame. He couldn't _die!_

As redheaded Erik stepped forward, the world screamed in two.

The monster Caliban stepped out of the tear in reality.

Ashes and old blood smeared his face, the mourner's tradition, and his eyes were hollow, grey and cold as the icy sea. His long hair, once worn with feathers and beads, was now shorn so close to his scalp it was only fingerlengths long in some places. Shorn and dry-eyed, and his face was that of one dead already.

He stood before the bier, and broke the shaft of his barbed spear over his knee. He placed the pieces beneath Niko's feet, a warrior's defeated enemy. He turned to face the mourners.

"The world will never know his like. Niko was a god among men, a warrior unequaled! He brought peace to your tribes, conquered lands you never knew existed. He was great, and the world will never forget him! His kingdom will never have equal, until God Himself steps down from Heaven! You mourn today the greatest man who lived!"

Caliban's voice rose shrill, broke like the ocean breaks over the stones. He gestured, commandingly, and Erik threw the torch upon the pyre.

And the flames rose. Oil and pitch caught and fed the fire and Caliban the monster threw his head back and keened as the richly-woven robes caught aflame.

With a sudden spring, Caliban was in the fire, kneeling on the bier, and his shorn head laid down on Niko's dead chest.

The flames roared, took all and gave nothing back.

Cal woke screaming, throat raw, flailing his way up out of his sheets.

Ever alert for an attack, Niko charged into the room, sword drawn, bare-chested and barefoot.

Cal flung himself at his brother, with a desperation he barely understood, the scent of burning in his nose, the dreaming grief like a knot in his chest riding hard on his heart. Niko's arms closed around him reflexively, and Cal wept like a man undone, his face buried in the crook of Niko's neck.

* * *

_I don't want your future  
_ _I don't need your past  
_ _One bright moment  
_ _Is all I have_

_I'm gonna leave my body  
_ _(Moving up to higher ground)  
_ _I'm gonna lose my mind  
_ _(My history keeps pulling me down)  
_ _Pulling me, pulling me down  
_ _[-"Leave my Body," Florence + the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQzGt64XhOQ)_

* * *

I woke up and found Niko in my bed.

That was so bizarre for a moment I stayed perfectly still.

Niko was sleeping sitting up against the headboard, a sword against his shoulder. My hand was on his knee, my face against his hip, and his free hand on my shoulder. For a moment I wondered if I was still dreaming, though I didn't usually come up with such weird dreams. They were usually the nasty nightmare kind.

And then I _remembered_.

Niko, the _dream_ , the arrow and the death and the fire.

For a moment my throat tightened, until I could tell myself it had been a _dream._ Niko was still here. Niko was alive and awake and touching the back of my neck like he always did. I sat up and scrubbed at my face; sleep-grit and tear-sticky face and the wetness of fresh tears. My nose was stopped up and I was shaken. Damn shaken. What kind of dream did that? I'd been through other nightmares, sure, been too scared to scream, but that? I'd never cried like _that._ Never. That just wasn't me.

But the smell of smoke, the taste of burnt fat on my lips - it had been so damn _real_ , like I'd _been_ there, like it had _happened._ Only it hadn't, obviously, because Niko's hand clamped on my shoulder, and I realized I'd been staring at the sheets.

"Cal?" he asked, quietly.

"I...uh...." I sniffed, loudly. Ugh, snot. Niko's hand tensed - in a minute he'd tell me to blow my damn nose. Niko hated that sound.

"Blow your nose." Yep, right on that one. And it almost made me smile.

Almost. I was still rattled. "I need a hot shower." And to get out of my bed, and away from the dream. I ran my hands through my hair, and the length almost startled me. Right. Cut short and growing out. Not long, not cut short for mourning. I shook my head, swore under my breath, and climbed out of bed.

After a long hot shower, I felt more like myself. The dream hadn't faded like a dream should - just my luck, my nightmares were taking on lives of their own. Besides, it was ridiculous. Niko was a swordsman, not an axe-wielding Viking. And I was human, not a monster covered in blood, with a smile more Auphe than human. Well, alright, so I had an inner monster. But I knew I was definitely _not_ the monster I'd seen in my dream.

Niko was at the table with coffee, tea, whole-wheat toast, and his usual yogurt. I slouched into my chair and grabbed a slice of toast. I was hungry, and even his grass crap would do. I sipped the coffee, strong and black and just the way I liked it.

Niko didn't ask if I felt better, didn't ask what the hell was wrong with me. Just let me eat and drink my coffee.

I knew he was waiting for me to talk, though. But I damn sure didn't understand, and I didn't know if he would. It was _just a damn dream_. I knew that. I did.

But I was staring at his hands, which had gone still, calloused and strong and I had to shut my eyes against the sweep of the dream, the sudden image of those hands cold and still and crossed over the handle of his axe....

"Cal."

I opened my eyes, but I couldn't look at him. I stared into my coffee. "Nik...I...I dreamed I saw you die. There...it was a fight, and you...the arrow...." I touched my own throat reflexively, remembered the blood spurting dark and free, remembered dead skin pulled together with white horsehair stitches and the golden torque they'd used to hide the worst of the wound for the funeral.

"Except it wasn't you. No, it was, but...you were like a Viking, and all the warriors you'd lead built you a pyre, and your son lit it, and I...I..." Committed suicide on your funeral pyre. Nice cheery thought. "I died too." With a grief so huge I think I - no, _he_ , the other me - had died the moment Niko had fallen.

Niko's foot nudged into my ankle under the table. I looked up at him, and when I blinked a fat tear rolled down my cheek. I scrubbed it away with the back of my sleeve, and wiped my nose too. "It was...so real. I could smell the smoke and the burning."

"I had wondered what might disturb you so badly," Niko said, contemplatively. "It's...very unusual now for you to wake me with your dreams."

Now, because when I'd first come back to him, after the Auphe had taken me...my dreams had kept us both up then. Now, I knew it was over, and even if they came back for visits sometimes, those dreams had lost their power. Which meant, obviously, my brain had to come up with something brand fuckin' new and disturbing. Geez. I drank my coffee. There was no mention of me blubbering like a tyke and no mention of Niko sleeping with me, which was good 'cause that just freaked me out. A little. I mean, brothers and all, but it didn't make it any more _okay_ to have two guys in the same bed.

It suddenly occurred to me today was Monday. I looked up at the clock. "Damn! Nik, aren't you supposed to be at the uni?"

"I called my little brother in sick," Niko reported, without a blink.

"I'm not sick," I grumbled back. Just freaked out, but that was going away. Way too slowly for my tastes, but it was going away. "I'm fine."

Niko raised an eyebrow. To anyone else, that was the same as any other of his skeptical-I-don't-believe-you faces, but to me who could tell just what the set of his lips meant and that particular angle of the brow...that was his "I don't believe you and I'm worried." Damn. But was it the worried that would let me go back to sleep? Or the worried that meant we'd spar to find out what was wrong with me?

....an hour later, I found out. It was the worried that meant sparring until we were both sweaty. Which took a long damn while, in Niko's case.

"I think I'm gonna puke...." Taking Niko's goddamn big foot to the gut would do that. And it was my fault, I'd hesitated. Still didn't change the fact I was flat on the floor and curled around my abused stomach.

Niko crouched beside me, and I didn't have to look to see the amusement in his face. Sometimes I'd swear he was a sadist. "Jerk." I told him.

"You did well until your attention slipped. What made you hesitate?"

"Dunno." The strike I'd had at the back of his neck. The flash of him going down limp, throat torn out by an arrow. "Tired I guess. Damn, Niko, we've been at this for hours. I'm hungry."

Niko snorted, but when I looked up, I could see he wasn't entirely convinced. "Fine. We'll break for lunch."

As long as I didn't think about it, the dream stayed away. But when I thought about it - wasn't faded, wasn't growing dimmer. If anything, each time it came back, there was a new gritty detail to lodge in my skull. But it _wasn't real_. Niko was alive, and he wasn't a Northern chieftain, wasn't a warrior with furs and armor and gold and robes fit for a king. He was just plain Niko, Zen-ninja-monster-slayer. No intricate braids, just a plain one. Just Niko. Just my brother.

~~Just the fragile human center of my world, fated one day to die.~~

He was alive, and it was just a dream.


End file.
